Bestimate is a utility designed to help you become more accurate and realistic about your predictions and promises. Add items like "Number of pages I will write this week" or "Number of pounds i will lose this month", and provide your predicted/promised values. Then, at the end of the time period, record your actual achieved values. Bestimator keeps track of how far off you were from your initial prediction/promise. Note that this program is intended to help you become more realistic about your predictions, so being off in either direction is just as bad!

Features

Track as many estimates as you would like.

Real-time updating of estimates as you adjust the data.

Export to CSV option.

Planned FeaturesI cater to the people so suggest something.

Screencast

Screenshots

NANY 2010 Release: Bestimate

UsageInstallationUnpack the archive to its own folder and run Bestimate.exe.

Using the Application1. Right-click the list (or use the toolbar buttons) and choose "Add entry" from the menu. A new entry will be added to the list with some default values. You will see a grey icon as well. This signifies that the entry hasn't been completed yet.2. Name the entry whatever you'd like and change the values as needed using the fields at the bottom.3. The accuracy is calculated in realtime as you adjust the numbers.4. Once you complete the entry by entering in an "Actual Value", the icon will turn green if 100% or red otherwise.5. The status bar will show an average accuracy from all your entries.

UninstallationDelete the folder you unpacked the archive to. Nothing is written to the registry.

Known IssuesIt wouldn't be software if it didn't have issues. Let me know if you find any.

I realize that one can set the columns to auto but it would be nice if the app remembered whatever sizing was last set.When trying this out I dragged columns around to the dimensions that I wanted, but on restart the interface reset to default.

I realize that one can set the columns to auto but it would be nice if the app remembered whatever sizing was last set.When trying this out I dragged columns around to the dimensions that I wanted, but on restart the interface reset to default.

I'd like to use this to track a few recurring tasks.My principal measurement unit is hours.The items I'd like to monitor can run from a couple of hours to a few days.At the low end of that range, 10, 15, or 37 minutes can be significant. I can't enter a decimal into the fields for predicted/actual values.Rather than a quick mental conversion to minutes (requires thinking ) would you consider allowing decimal entries?

any chance of a totals row at the foot of the window, in order to sum each column?

Sure...but did you mean just the Actual Value, Predicted Value and Accuracy columns? Otherwise, I'm not sure how you'd like the other columns totaled, guv. =]

My apologies for being vague. Yes, the Actual, Predicted, and Accuracy columns are those for which I'd like to see totals.Here, a typical project probably breaks into 20-40 significant chunks. A see-at-a-glance overview of those columns would be useful both for a final analysis and also as a crude guide to progress during execution.

At the same time, I'm aware of being lazy by not dumping the .csv into a spreadsheet

Well, Oliver, since you ask... here's a new twist.Can I have a separate Bestimate file for each of many projects?If projects are sequential there's no problem, I can simply delete unwanted items and start again. However, if projects run in parallel and each has many steps...

Can I have a separate Bestimate file for each of many projects?If projects are sequential there's no problem, I can simply delete unwanted items and start again. However, if projects run in parallel and each has many steps...

Funny you should ask since I've already started work on that based on what you said a few posts ago. =]

Website | Downloadv1.0.5 - 2010-02-27 + Added per-file saving/loading. (Thanks, cranioscopical) + Added up/down toolbar buttons to move a selection in the listview. + Added a "Recent files" menu to the main File menu. * Changed the icon look from the Silk set to the Fugue set found at http://www.pinvoke.com.